I've just read a message about QGRE. I got 740/800 last time but I don't think it's necessary to take it again. I decided to focus more on PGRE this time and to send the same score for QGRE. My problem at the QGRE were the graphs and tables. (Horrible for me, don't want to see that ever again...) I usually see the tricks like 9^99/99^9 but I still don't want to take it. My question: Should I take it again? How important is it for getting admitted in, let's say, top 20? The univ's are publishing the PGRE scores and not the QGRE so I took that as a point of reference

740 seems to be quite low for top 20, because IIRC they have means of something like 790 and so might for example coldly cut off anyone below 770, I don't know. You probably should check some previous years' profiles and see if anyone with 740 was accepted to top 20.

I just want to add this (don't understand me wrong): I like the GRE-system. It's far better to have some objective tests that count in the admission process but I REALLY want to start finally my research, I have some ideas and I'd like to start working on them. Some schools (not only in the US but all over the world) don't have people with the right preparation for what I want to do. This does not mean that these schools are bad, just that they work on other things. That's why I have a "top 20-mania". So starting again with problems like "john has 2 apples, marry has 4" etc. just makes me a little ... peace...